the online world of Mike Rodriquez

eTech05: Whew!

Wow! I’ve never done anything quite like this before. 27 eTech posts over a 4 day period. Written pretty much in real time, with only a quick scan for outright stupidness before posting. I created a new category, eTech, so all of the postings can be found in one spot.

Was it worth it? Time will tell, but I think so. For one thing, I was keenly focused on every talk I blogged. On the other hand, I missed the meta-conference from last year, aka as the conference IRC backchannel.

The postings will help serve as a trip report, for sharing with colleagues. Beyond that, they will hopefully serve to alert others that interesting things were said about this topic and that. I tried to include some links of interest to give each article more value. I’d like to think I’ll go back through the posts and add a few more links, but that is unlikely.

Taking a quick look back over the postings and the sessions I attended, a couple of interesting themes stand out for me. First, I’m not sure I realized how interested I am in the whole categorizing/folksonomy discussion. I do face the related deep vs. wide issue both at work and in my personal archiving efforts; it’s great to see all these excellent minds worrying about my problems.

2nd, there was a lot of focus on web services, and how opening up an API can help make a service grow and thrive. Many examples of this were seen at various talks.

Favorite non-technical talks, in no particular order:

* Lessig on remix * Lifehacks * von Neumann’s universe

For the second year in a row, I had a very thought-provoking and energizing time at eTech, and consider it one of my best conference experiences to date.